The Central Mystery of Faith

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

After 40 days of austerity and fasting during the penitential season of Lent, three climatic days of celebrating the central mystery of our faith during the Easter Triduum, and 50 gloriously festive days of Eastertide concluding with a commemoration of the birth of the Church at Pentecost, one would have expected a more sedated Ordinary Time allowing us to return to our daily, ordinary and sometimes mundane routine. We are in Ordinary Time, but there is hardly anything ordinary about this time. The next few weeks remained littered with celebrations, a series of three Solemnities of the Lord, beginning with the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, which we celebrate today, followed by the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) next Sunday and finally, the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus on the Friday following Corpus Christi.

Celebrating the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity after Pentecost makes perfect sense because today’s feast sums up God’s revelation which was brought about through the Paschal Mysteries: Christ’s death and Resurrection, his Ascension to the right hand of the Father and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It may be a little more difficult to see the connection between this Sunday’s Solemnity and the feast which we will celebrate next week. We can’t imagine how the Church can draw the line of trajectory that links a contemplation of the lofty intangible mystery of the Holy Trinity to that of contemplating the sensually tangible substantial and real presence of Christ in the elements of bread and wine.

Perhaps, the first clue to understanding the link between the Trinity and the Eucharist comes from this paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church – “The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God.” (CCC n. 237) Similarly, the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is also “a mystery of faith in the strict sense”, one which can only be known through the revelation of Jesus, when he told his disciples whilst showing them the bread, “this is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19) and when he clarified that his “flesh is real food” and his “blood real drink” (John 6:55). In other words, we can only come to know of the Truth behind these two mysteries, because God had allowed us to eavesdrop.

The second clue comes from Eastern Iconography, in particular a 15th century icon which I deeply treasure, Rublev’s Icon of the Holy Trinity. This marvelous icon beautifully illustrates the association between the greatest of Sacraments and the mystery of the One God in three persons. In this icon the Three Divine Persons are depicted as three angelic beings gathered around a table. Why are angels chosen to represent the three divine persons? At one level, the icon tells the story of the three men or angels who visited Abraham at the oak of Mamre (Gen 18:1-5). The Fathers of the Church saw these three angels as a prefiguration of God in Three persons. Another reason why angels are chosen as visual representations of the Three divine persons is because according to Eastern Tradition, only Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity can be represented in art because he alone of the Three Divine Persons, took on flesh in the Incarnation. It is a perennial challenge to visually depict all three persons of the Trinity together, especially when both the Father and the Holy Spirit are wholly spiritual beings. The only logical solution would be to choose a spiritual being whom we can visualise to represent another spiritual being that we cannot visualise.

As we place ourselves in front of the icon in prayer, we come to experience a gentle invitation, an irrepressible pull to participate in or ‘eavesdrop’ on the intimate conversation that is taking place among the three divine angels and to join them around the table. What strikes us about the three distinct figures of the angels is not only the exceptional harmony of the composition, but also their inherent unity. A circle can easily be discerned. As the figures gaze at each other, we imagine a circular movement, a kind of a dance, where each is drawn to the other, each is focused on the other, each expresses love for the other. We literally imagine their love, which is an extension of their very being, weaving in and out of each other in a blissful, dynamic circle. The Father looks forward, raising his hand in blessing to the Son. We seem to hear the words, “This is my Son, listen to him…” The hand of the Son points on, around the circle, to the Spirit. “I will send you a Advocate …” In this simple array we see the movement of life towards us, the Father sends the Son, the Son sends the Spirit. Life and love flow clockwise around the circle. But it remains incomplete until we complete the circle.

Our eyes naturally fall at a particular spot on the icon which beckons us to enter and take our place at the table. The fourth side of the table, the one closest to the viewer, has been deliberately left bare, an empty seat, a vacant space. All points to this space, this mystery: within it, everything about God is summed up and expressed, his power, his glory, and above all his love. And it is expressed in such a way that we can reach it. For the space at this table is on our side. We are invited to complete the circle, to join the dance, to complete the movements of God in the world by our own response. We are lifted and drawn into this circle of unending love, to eavesdrop on the divine conversation, and to share the communal meal of hospitality with our divine hosts. The vacant space helps us to remember that when we contemplate both the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Eucharist, there is no room for bystanders or spectators, only for those who are prepared to sit down and share the meal.

What sort of meal is this? It is no ordinary meal. It is placed on the table or altar which lies at the centre of the picture. It is at once the place of Abraham's hospitality to the angels, and God's place of hospitality to us. That ambiguity lies at the heart of communion, at the heart of worship. As soon as we open a sacred place for God to enter, for God to be welcomed and adored, it becomes his place. It is we who are welcomed, it is we who must 'take off our shoes' because of the holiness of the ground. Contained in the centre of the circle is a chalice with a sacrificed lamb. Firstly it is the symbol of the Incarnation. In Christ, the whole of humanity is incorporated into the divine Trinitarian life. By becoming incarnate, the second person of the Trinity takes our humanity into his own relations with the Father and the Holy Spirit. In Christ, space is made for us on the vacant side of the table.

But it is obvious to us that the chalice which sits at the centre of the table signifies the Eucharist too, the great Sacrament of communion and unity. It is here that we come to understand the magnitude of what it means to receive communion and be in communion. Every time we receive communion, we not only receive the Body of Christ, we are received into the communion of the Three Divine Persons. This leads us to the conclusion, that while the Eucharist is the greatest of sacraments, it leads to something even greater: to eternal life, by which we share in the very life and loving exchanges of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. Participation in the Eucharist is participation in the divine life itself.

We finally come to realise what the three persons are talking about. Our eavesdropping bears fruit. The subject of God’s eternal colloquy is the divine economy, the divine mission – humanity’s redemption. They have been talking about us all along. The meal had been prepared and the table set for us, we are to be God’s guest of honour. The subject of this homily too must find its ultimate conclusion here – to know the Trinity, to understand the Eucharist, is to be one with Christ and with Christ, to be one with the Father and the Spirit.

One last thing to be said about Rublev’s icon: there are three signs behind each of the divine angels – a hill, a tree and a house. We need to follow the Holy Spirit up the hill of prayer that leads us to find shade under the tree, the cross of sacrifice of the Lamb but now transformed into the tree of life. Having rested beneath its shade, it is time to continue our journey home, to the house of your Father. This is the goal of our journey. It is the beginning and end of our lives. Its roof is golden. It’s door is always open for the traveler. It has a tower providing a wide vantage to the Father who incessantly scans the roads and the horizon for a glimpse of a returning prodigal. There we shall find a meal, not just in Sacramental form, but truly a heavenly feast fit for kings and saints.

In the Holy Spirit the Church “lives and moves and has its being

Pentecost Sunday

Since Easter the first readings have been taken from the Acts of the Apostles. Those responsible for the arrangement and the content of our lectionary must have been truly inspired. We have been recalling the early days of the Church, its staggering growth, juxtaposed against a multitude of sufferings. All this was seen by St. Luke, the author of this remarkable book, as a direct result of that memorable day of Pentecost. The secret of their resilience was not found in the noble human spirit, it sprang from the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Acts of the Apostles makes great reading, but it is not meant to be nostalgic and sentimental. Rather the stories of conversions, preachings, missionary journeys and rapid church growth are there to inspire us — for we too have received the same Holy Spirit.

In 1968 Patriarch Ignatius, the Orthodox Metropolitan of Latakia, gave an amazing address at the Assembly of the World Council of Churches. In it he spoke of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church in a striking and memorable way:

Without the Holy Spirit God is far away.

Christ stays in the past,

The Gospel is simply an organisation,

Authority is a matter of propaganda,

The Liturgy is no more than an evolution,

Christian loving a slave mentality.

But in the Holy Spirit

The cosmos is resurrected and grows with the birth pangs of the kingdom.

The Risen Christ is there,

The Gospel is the power of life,

The Church shows forth the life of the Trinity,

Authority is a liberating science,

Mission is a Pentecost,

The Liturgy is both renewal and anticipation,

Human action is deified.

Therefore, the Church without the Holy Spirit is not the Church. In the Holy Spirit the Church “lives and moves and has its being”. It is sad that so many individual believers live as if the Holy Spirit had never come, to treat the Church as a purely human institution that either needs to be reinvented to bring it into the twenty first century or has to be safeguarded as if it has fallen into unredeemable heresy. There is also a great temptation to be in the grips of two extremes that confuses the relationship between the Spirit and the Church. On the one hand, we have a humanism that excludes the activity of the Spirit from the Church, and on the other hand, we have a pietism that reduces the activity of the Spirit to some form of emotionalism.

In a world that has grown accustomed to defining every issue according the human categories, the members of the Church are tempted to follow suit with little discernment between being "in the Holy Spirit" and being "without the Holy Spirit". What we often do as a Church is often governed by principles of utility, expediency, efficiency, suitability, and marketability, rather than just being faithful to the voice of the Holy Spirit who continues to communicate the will of the Father through the revelation of the Son. In fact, anyone caught discussing the role of the Holy Spirit in the decision-making process risk being accused of over-simplification. On the other end of the spectrum, with the rise of Pentecostalism and its influence on Catholic Culture and ecclesial communities, the presence of Spirit is often mistaken for emotional hype. Here, reason is subjected to suspicion and those who caution prudence often find themselves accused of being faithless. We fail to remember and recognise that there is no opposition between faith and reason and that the presence of the Holy Spirit is discerned from the power of love, the strength of faith, and the experience of joy in the midst of hardship and persecution.

Many have often accused the Catholic Church of being indifferent or at least pays little attention to the Third Person of the Trinity. They would be surprised to learn that the Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a central place for the Holy Spirit in relation to the Church. The Catechism, unequivocally teaches that: “The Church, a communion living in the faith of the apostles which she transmits, is the place where we know the Holy Spirit (CCC 668):

- in the Scriptures He inspired;

- in the Tradition, to which the Church Fathers are always timely witnesses;

- in the Church's Magisterium, which He assists;

- in the sacramental liturgy, through its words and symbols, in which the Holy Spirit puts us into communion with Christ;

- in prayer, wherein He intercedes for us;

- in the charisms and ministries by which the Church is built up;

- in the signs of apostolic and missionary life;

- in the witness of saints through whom He manifests his holiness and continues the work of salvation.

Since he assumed his office, Pope Francis has preached - by word and deed - a dynamic Catholic faith and a Church that must be passionate with the mission of evangelisation. This is a Pope who believes that the Church is driven by the Holy Spirit and God's love, not by bureaucrats or militants. He calls us to remember this simple truth, a truth that is often forgotten when we place so much trust in our own cleverness and devices, that the power of the Holy Spirit is available today for all believers just as it was in the early Church. It is the same Holy Spirit who always calls the Church to authentic renewal. The Pope adds, that at times, “the Holy Spirit upsets us because it moves us, it makes us walk, it pushes the Church forward.” But the problem is, according to him, we want to “calm down the Holy Spirit, we want to tame it and this is wrong, because the Holy Spirit is the strength of God, it's what gives us the strength to go forward.”  Our first reaction is never to resist the pull of the Holy Spirit but to submit.

Like the apostles who were gathered in continuous prayer together with Mary the Mother of the Lord and with the other disciples, we confidently hope and pray that we too will experience a new Pentecost, a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and then we, like Peter and the first apostles, will be able to go out and share the gift of our faith and our hope with a world that needs to be reminded that God has not abandoned them, that he continues guide them, protect them, and strengthen them through the power of the Spirit.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created.

And You shall renew the face of the earth.

O, God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

Connection between Glory and the Cross

Seventh Sunday of Easter - Year A

If you are a connoisseur of art, you would realise that the point of art and painting is not to represent things in the real world as how they should actually look. If this was the case, it would have been much easier to just a take a photograph. Representational art, when it is good, conveys to the viewer not just an idea of what the subject looked like, but some of the artists’ reflection or experience of seeing as well. At least this seems to be part of the reason why representational art has survived and is still valued, even in the age of the photograph, video cameras and of course, camera phones! Even though you may have several albums full of photos of your mother, nothing can substitute a good painting of her. This is because a good painting is not merely a representation of what someone or something looks like, but also a reaction to it. It says more about the subject than its appearance. It shares insights into the human meaning of what it represents.

These reflections on art have a certain relevance to the gospels, especially to the Gospel of John. Its purpose is not merely to give the story of Jesus, but to meditate on its meaning. Throughout the gospel, the historical Jesus is seen from the perspective of the resurrection and the giving of the Spirit. All of the gospels are more like paintings than like photographs, but especially John’s gospel. One might say that the Synoptics are more like Western Christian art form: certainly theological rather than merely biographical, but generally straightforward, realistic, narrative and historical. John’s Gospel, on the other hand, is more like Eastern or Byzantium iconography; stylised, with a complex set of symbols, consciously looking at things in the light of eternity, demanding deep personal engagement by the viewer.

Today’s gospel is a good example. The scene is once again the Last Supper, but it is portrayed poetically, not historically. Jesus, who has yet to meet his passion and experience the resurrection, speaks from eternity, from beyond the grave. In Jesus’ sacred, saving hour, a great liturgy of love emerges from the poetry of this prayer. Through his word and in the sacred bread of his body, all are drawn toward the Father to receive life and glory. A major biblical motif, “glory” (kabod) was used in the Old Testament to illustrate God’s goodness in providing for his people in the wilderness; for example God’s presence in the pillar of fire and cloud was called “glory”; God’s saving intervention was described in terms of manifesting his “glory,” and God’s presence as He alighted on the Tent of Meeting, also referred to his “glory.”

So, what did Jesus mean when he spoke of the hour of entering into his “glory”?  Such “glory” is certainly not equivalent to what man often desires - popularity, public acceptance, praises and a good name. Here lies the divine paradox of the gospel - when Jesus spoke of his own glory he was speaking about the cross. Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus and his ministry was portrayed as a progressive process of glorification, a process of preparation for the ultimate “sign” – the crucifixion, the culmination of God’s saving intervention in salvation history.

St. Peter must have finally understood the connection between glory and the cross after several failed attempts. At the time of his first letter, the early Christian communities were already experience persecution and suffering for their faith. The cross was no longer theoretical or symbolic, it was very real. And yet in today’s second reading, St Peter writes with great confidence and as a means of encouraging his fellow Christians: “If you can have some share in the sufferings of Christ, be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed. It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you.”

The other radical twist introduced in today’s passage is that Jesus speaks of eternal life not as some future or eschatological reality, something which you experience only after death. On the contrary, one can experience eternal life in the here and now. According to Jesus, eternal life is “to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”. To know connotes the intimacy of an immediate experience rather than cognitive knowledge. Such as, my family knows the real me! Therefore, “to know” God, means to be called into an intimate relationship with the Father, like the one that Jesus the Son already enjoyed. This provides another beautiful layer to our understanding Jesus’ hour of glory. In other words, knowledge of and intimate participation with Jesus in his hour, in his glory, or in the words of St Peter, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, one can already taste eternal life here and now.

Thus, the cross and suffering for our faith, continues to be mark of every Christian, his glory, his path to intimacy with God, to eternal life. Of course, practising our faith today, may not be as dangerous as in antiquity (unless you are a Christian living in the Middle East, Northern Nigeria, Pakistan etc), yet remains challenging, perhaps more challenging than the past. Today, we face a greater danger from modern society – the danger of being ignored or even rejected by secular culture. Its moral values, forced to compete in a free market of ideas, frequently seem unattractive, outdated or simply irrelevant to present day lifestyles.  Many, thus, have given in to the temptation of allowing its core teachings and values to be reshaped and moulded into a more politically correct and socially acceptable version that is to the liking of modern tastes. Social tolerance and relativism has led to the suspicion and rejection of the particularity of the Christian faith and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Saviour. Ultimately, it has led to widespread moral decline, and with that the world suffers the loss of beauty, the good and the Truth.

Christian faith continues to present a different picture of glory, one which requires us to see the world, its trials and tribulations, through the lenses of eternity. It calls the world to transcendence, to appreciate once again the need for beauty, goodness, and truth. But if this message is to be heard, there must be Christians who are disciples that are willing to live out the message of today’s gospel. This means living a life in the world that already goes beyond it and resists being reduced to its conventions. And it is intrinsic to this way of life that it be lived not merely by isolated individuals, but by a community. Thus, the essential need for our BECs, our Basic Ecclesial Communities, or perhaps, our Catholic Students' Society (CSS), to bear witness to the gospel message. Where we reject community living, we in fact reject the gospel, and we become anti-witnesses of its message. Thus, community life should not only communicate a message of about communion and love, but also show its truth and beauty. In this sense, Christian life must be a work of art – it must be sacramental, it must be beautiful. For if the message of Christ’s triumph over death is to be convincing – even to ourselves – we must show in living it that it is beautiful, good and true, that the vision it shares is about what really is, and that apprehending it leads to fulfillment and joy.  

Between Faith and Doubt

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord - Year A

We are a conflicted lot – we often vacillate between moments of grieving sorrow and bursting joy, between moments of profound love and moments of intense hostility, between moments of deep faith and moments of critical doubt. And I don’t think it’s because we are bi-polar. It merely speaks of our imperfect human condition, a contingent existence where so much depends on our present yet temporary condition and surrounding circumstances.  The apostles were certainly not immune from this predicament. They too vacillated between exaltation over the miracles they had witnessed and misunderstanding and doubt. 

Toward the end of St Matthew’s Gospel, and right before the passage called the Great Commission, you’ve heard that the eleven disciples saw the Risen One in Galilee, and the gospel makes this seemingly puzzling observation of seemingly contrasting, even contradictory actions: “when they saw Him they fell down before Him: but some hesitated.”  The sequence seems disjointed. Most other translations use the word “doubted,” a shocking alternative to the more ambivalent “hesitated”.  The very event that was intended to both proclaim Jesus’ resurrection and set forth Jesus’ Great Commission seems compromised by this intrusive statement about doubt among the eleven closest disciples.

Some commentators would explain this seeming contradiction by reminding us that in St Matthew’s account of the post-resurrection story, we do not have the reports of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus as in the case of St Luke or the first hand encounter with the Risen Lord in the Gospel of John. For all purposes, in St Matthew’s Gospel, apart from the women who returned from an empty tomb, this was the first time the Risen Lord had appeared to them in person – thus the explanation for their doubts. We can’t be too sure that this was the reason for their doubting and hesitation. The laconic words of the Gospel say nothing about the nature of their doubts.  But the Apostles’ doubt makes their state closer to that feeling familiar to anyone striving to find a conscious faith grounded in understanding, and yet continue to be beset by doubts.

To add further puzzlement to the mystery, it’s interesting to note that the word “some” which appears before “hesitated” or “doubted” doesn’t appear in the Greek. It’s just not there; it’s been added in the translations. A more direct translation is “seeing him, they worshipped and doubted” or perhaps, “worshipped but doubted.”  With the addition of the word “some,” it makes the verse sounds as though there were two groups of disciples: the good ones, those who worshiped without doubt, and the not so good, those who doubted. But in the original Greek, what the text really states is that they all worshiped and they all doubted.

Which leaves us with this question, is it possible to believe and doubt at the same time? NO!!! I mean, YES!!! Absolutely not! It is, too! If two people were having this conversation, it would be tense...If this were a conversation between me, myself and I...well, that’s just scary! Yet, how often do we find ourselves in this actual predicament. My Myer-Briggs Personality test reveals that I’m a typical INTP type, and one of the most distinctive characteristics of this type of personality is self-doubt – I’m constantly busy debating with myself, doubting the correctness and the veracity of my thoughts, actions, decisions and conclusion. Examining my own experience, which I do not believe that I am peculiarly alone in this, I’ve come to realise although I can honestly say I believe in God, I have to admit that there are certainly times when I doubt; doubt that I am really speaking to God, doubt that God is actually in control of the whole situation or doubt that, given some situation I’m facing, God really loves me or knows what He’s doing.

These conflicting forces of doubt and believe best summarises the “little faith”, which is the hallmark of St Matthew’s theological understanding of the meaning of discipleship. The disciples are often confronted by Jesus himself for their “little faith,” which does not imply the absence of faith at all, but a reminder that faith by its very nature cannot be reduce to mere certainty or cocksureness. Remember, the opposite of faith is not doubt – the opposite of faith is certainty. Faith contains doubt, faith implies doubt or at least the possibility of doubt – certainty neither allows doubt nor requires faith. It’s important to note that the Greek word for “doubt” as Matthew uses it in the passage is not disbelief, but rather wavering belief – being of “two minds” – in other words, the absence of certainty. And we know this to be true from our own experience.

For most of us, faith and doubt often seem to go hand-in-hand. In a way, this puts the emphasis back on God to do the work in us. We can muster up all the belief in our heart, soul and mind, but without God’s help to do so, it will never be enough. For if faith is equal to certainty, there will never be an element of trusting God and allowing God to do what seems impossible to us or even at odds with our designs and plans. Once persons accept that they are both strong and weak, hardy and frail, capable of moments of shimmering faith and times where all seems lost, then they can relax, breathe, and trust in God’s faithfulness and providential care.

Thus the same elements of worship, doubt and a little faith inhere in the Church even after Easter as before. It is not to angels or perfect believers but the worshipping and wavering community of disciples, both saints and sinners alike, that the world mission is entrusted. It is heartening therefore that such a mission to share in the authority of Christ, to evangelise and proclaim the gospel, to enlist and make new disciples into a witnessing community, to sanctify through the sharing of sacramental life and finally to hand on faithfully the teaching of Christ, is entrusted not a rock solid faith-filled Church made up of perfectly impeccable members, but to one which is filled with those who often waver in their faith and who struggle with what little faith they possess. It is consoling and encouraging for us to know that we don’t have to be perfect, to possess rock-solid faith without a shadow of doubt, to be absolutely certain of our convictions and vocation to carry out the mission that Christ has imparted to us. Indeed, He has done this despite our many foibles!

At the end of the gospel of St Matthew, Jesus does not ascend. That seems utterly ironic especially when this is the gospel chosen for Year A of our Lectionary Cycle for this Solemnity of the Ascension. The significance of his Ascension is seen in the parting words of Jesus, “And know that I am with you always, yes, to the end of time.” His last words are a promise of his continuing presence during the Church’s mission. After the Ascension, our motley crew of worshipping and doubting disciples returned to the sanctuary of the Upper Room, led back to the place where the Church is born, to the place where these disciples will receive the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit. And it is here, in the Church that we too must pursue our mission and find our peace. The Church, despite all appearances, remains the gateway. We need a community who heals, yet we are deeply fractured by our sinfulness. We need a community to strengthen our faith, although we continue to vacillate between belief and doubt. We need a community that continues to make present through the Sacraments and the Word the promise of Christ, “I am with you always, yes, to the end of time.” And because Christ is present in and with and through this community of broken people, a community of the spiritually bi-polar, that we are healed.

The Crisis of Faith

Third Sunday of Easter - Year A

Crisis is not an attractive word. The word often suggests that we are facing a catastrophic disaster; if it didn’t feel this way, we wouldn’t call it a crisis. Imagine the feeling – it feels as if segments of the sky are falling on our heads, we have vivid visions of the earth rending asunder beneath our feet and tsunamis approaching just over the horizon. But yet again, a crisis is not quite a disaster, not yet. During lucid moments and on hindsight, we come to recognise that though there was a sliver of threat of an impending disaster, the crisis was more accurately a call by our whole psycho-somatic system for immediate and drastic action. In fact great good can come out of a critical situation if such action is taken; or if unaddressed, then it could turn out to be the disaster foretold.

A crisis of faith, like any other crises, follows the same pattern. A crisis of faith takes place when you reach a dead end, then realise you simply have no faith in your faith. Our inability to find a way out of our problems makes us feel abandoned and betrayed by the Lord. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus would have certainly experienced this. The shocking demise of their Master had left them questioning their faith; they have become uncertain about their prior convictions and beliefs, which had appeared so certain when the Lord was alive. And as a result of this crisis, this seeming catastrophe, they are now rendered emotionally insecure, bewildered and, wandering as sheep without a shepherd.

Wherein precisely lies the crisis in modern times? Of course, there are the age old catalysts– unanswered prayer, the darkness and silence of God in the midst of personal crisis, laxity in prayer life and the inability of immature faith to deal with hard questions of life. The surface causes for such a crisis are as varied as individual experience. But today, the causes and occasions for giving rise to faith crises have evolved and multiplied. In fact, as Pope Benedict XVI himself had observed and proposed in his Motu Poprio, Porta Fidei (PF), that there is a serious crisis of faith and this is the reason: faith is no longer a self-evident presupposition in life (PF 2) In other words, our society and culture have become unfamiliar with the vocabulary of faith. More often than not, we are beset by a variety of forces that are totally secular and even sometimes anti-religious and anti-God.

A faith crisis arises not because faith contradicts or excludes reason. On the contrary, it is the failure to exercise the full capacity of our reason in service of faith that occasions such a crisis. The age old adage attributed to St Anselm reminds us that “faith seeks understanding”; it does not, however, suspends or abdicates reason. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, from the beginning of his pontificate, has called our attention to the problem of a self-imposed limit on the use of reason.  One result of this narrowing of reason is making religious and moral questions part of the subjective realm; in other words, a matter of personal preference. In this way, faith has become a matter of sentimentality. Faith no longer has anything to do with knowledge. In other words, I believe because I “feel” that it is true and not because it’s reasonable to do so based on objective knowledge. In a society that thrives off the ‘feel-good’ philosophy, the prevalence of faith crises is understandable especially when faith is associated with the absence of discomfort, pain, suffering, tragedy, or in short, the cross.

Thus, today we are witnessing a crisis that affects not just on a small isolated level of individuals grappling with issues of faith. We are witnessing as never before a crisis at a scale that affects thousands and millions within the Church itself. Some are in open rebellion against the faith of their fathers. Other people are not yet ready to discard the faith they may still cherish for purely sentimental or cultural reasons. But they have serious doubts about so much of Catholic teaching. Some articles of faith they are willing to admit, but others they have strong reservations about, e.g. contraceptives, abortion, gay marriages, or anything that does not square with their modern sensibilities. Some have their faith shaken by the scandalous behaviour of clerics in the Church; these former heroes and giants of faith now stand with their feet of clay exposed. Today, there is a whole new vocabulary of relevance, subjective meaning, and dissent that it is no wonder so many have serious doubts not only about this or that feature of Catholic life, but even about its value at all.

With the compartmentalisation of faith and its restriction to the private and subjective sphere, it becomes more and more difficult to hold a conversation or dialogue concerning ultimate questions.  Yet, this separation of faith and life does not correspond to our nature, it does not match the deep desires of our heart. Our desire is to find meaning in our life, to see the link between the fleeting moment of our circumstance and the big picture. Our desire is for truth, beauty and goodness, and we want this in an objectively real way and not merely for a subjective and sentimental cheap substitute. These aspirations of the heart are what make us human – in fact, our thirst for God is what characterises us as human.

It was this innate yearning and aspiration of the two grieving disciples that led them to open their hearts and door to the stranger on the road to Emmaus. This encounter helped them to discover the central point of the Christian message, a point which the separation of faith and life will constantly miss – faith is to be found not in the absence of pain and suffering but in the crucible of life’s troubles. Only by embracing the cross can our faith grow stronger. Yes, faith will survive, even in the midst of a worldwide crisis, but not without pain – the pain of the cross. Such as there can be no Easter without Good Friday, we as Christians cannot live the resurrected life of the redeemed unless we are prepared to embrace the cross. Because of this central fact, every crisis of faith need not end in the loss of it, but rather is a call “to rediscover the journey of faith so as to shed ever clearer light on the joy and renewed enthusiasm of the encounter with Christ.” (PF 2)

In a modern world with few moral champions, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta stands as one of the most well regarded religious leader in recent history. Her work among the poorest of the poor is legendary and her faith, an inspiration to millions. Yet, as it turns out, the missionary who brought light to those in deepest darkness was herself in darkness. After her death, some personal letters were made public in a book. In one of her letters, she wrote an undated address to Jesus, "Where is my Faith - even deep down right in there is nothing, but emptiness & darkness - My God - how painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith." This must have come as a shock to many, for example, one reporter mockingly quipped that she should be made the patron saint of doubters, but to those who have travelled the necessary road to Emmaus, the story of Mother Teresa is all too familiar.

How do we make sense of this? Pope Benedict’s Regina Caeli reflection on the Story of Emmaus provides the answer to this mystery: “This road to Emmaus on which we travel can become a way of purification and maturation of our believing in God.” In other words, a faith crisis is meant to help us grow in faith, not smother the smouldering ashes. It would seem that God’s greatest challenge is to teach us to trust Him, and the only way to trust Him, is to enrol us in the graduate school of hard knocks, wintery darkness, desert dryness, and walk us through the path that passes through Calvary before it reaches the Garden Tomb. It is possible to be not only sustained in this arduous journey but actually to grow into a much deeper and more authentic faith, when we constantly return to the twofold table, once made known the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and to us at every mass – we are nourished and refreshed as we feed on His Word and His real presence in the Eucharist. It is here that we will discover the object of our deepest longing, it is the Risen Lord, who died for us but has now vanquished our oldest foe, death itself. And it is in this two fold fount of grace, that we will discover that every faith crisis need not end in disaster but in new life!

Holiness never goes out of fashion

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A

In the past, sin was regarded as something shameful and scandalous; today, holiness and piety are regarded as anomalies, the result of shame-driven neurosis that needs to be contained and cured.  We frequently hear the following caution from well-intentioned persons, “Don’t try to be too holy” as if the condition of being too holy could even lead to either permanent brain damage or our damnation.  Both in secular media as well as among liberal theological circles, we witness a tendency to vilify saints matched by the canonisation of villains. Thus, the emergence of a new genre of the ‘anti-hero,’ the flawed, post-villainous figure, lacking in any of the traditional heroic characteristics, but nevertheless the new idol for emulation.

Holiness as a life-goal is no longer fashionable in our society, and perhaps, even within the ranks of the Church, and there are understandable reasons for this. First, holiness has often been associated with an otherworldly mysticism that supposedly leads people away from the crying needs and concerns of daily life. The holy person then appears to be a dropout from society. Holiness has also been confused with neurotic perfectionism—the illusion that one’s best is never good enough, thus filling us with a perpetual gnawing feeling of inadequacy. Finally, holiness has been confounded with a legalistic mentality that insists on rigorous adherence to moral codes often stated in negations—no drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no dancing, no card-playing, etc. Thus the preferred domain of wet-blankets and party-poopers.

For a culture that has grown weary and even intolerant of holiness and perfection, Jesus’ words at the end of today’s gospel must be a cause of confusion: “You shall be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” For many of us, the commandment to be perfect triggers feelings of anxiety and discomfort.  We are painfully aware of our weaknesses and inadequacies, yet we continue to drive ourselves to reach impossible goals.  Then, when we fall short, we label ourselves as failures and often feel hopelessness and ashame. To compound matters, Jesus seems to be advocating a new kind of evangelical perfectionism. Perhaps, the real problem is that many confuse the commandment of Jesus to be perfect with the call to perfectionism. “Perfect," in this context, means "complete, finished, fully developed.” Who doesn’t wish this?  Notice that the term does not mean "flawless!"  

People who struggle with perfectionism often believe that they could be doing better – for them it is always a personal struggle to outdo themselves. They are much too hard on themselves, expecting perfection from themselves and becoming bitter and even hating themselves for coming up short. They fail to understand God’s grace and the nature of His unconditional love.  They forget that perfection belongs to God alone, but the story doesn’t end there.  God sent His Son Jesus Christ to die as a perfect sacrifice for sin.  This is the glorious message of hope and grace in the gospel.  Though we sin, though we are flawed, we can be forgiven, saved, sanctified, and perfected.  St Paul assures the Philippians in Chapter 1 verse 6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”  Christ completes us. Paul reminds us that perfection and the call to holiness isn’t a singular one-off event but a process of sanctification as we continue to learn to walk in the path of Christ.  Perfection is never possible by our own efforts, that’s the illusion posed by perfectionism. Perfectionism can indeed be an obstacle to perfection in holiness. This is because it prevents us from allowing God to perfect the good work he has begun in us. Thus, we should struggle against perfectionism, yes, but always be ready to embrace perfection, especially in the area of spiritual excellence.

For a Christian, the way to reach perfection is to strive for holiness. Perfection and Holiness are synonyms. What is true perfection? Christ's words are clear, sublime and disconcerting: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." This passage plainly teaches that our attitudes toward other people must be the same as those of our Father in heaven. If not, we have no right to claim to be His children. It impresses upon us the necessity of conforming our lives to the qualities and standards of divinity. To have God as our model is a dizzying thought! Yet the Church reminds us that, all the faithful, whatever their condition or state in life, are called by the Lord to that perfect holiness. Holiness is always a call to every Christian of every age, a challenge for anyone who wants to follow in the footsteps of Christ. Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote: "Holiness is not something for the extraordinary; it is not a luxury of the few. Holiness is the simple duty for each one of us."

Lastly, today’s gospel reminds us that holiness is never theoretical, it is always ethical. The ethic of holiness does not lie in the strict observance of some external code or set of rules. Holiness is something deeper than morality. Since, it implies closeness to the Living God, it does not conform to the conventional standards of reason and wisdom. The ethic of holiness lies in the transforming experience of the new birth of a Christian. It is an ethic that does not repay injury with injury. It is an ethic that challenges us not just to settle for the minimal but always aspire for loftier goals. And finally, it is an ethic that is not just based on retributive justice, on fear of divine punishment, but one which must always be rooted in love, unconditional love. We are driven to service of our neighbor through the paradoxical love of the cross, the love that is demanding, sacrificial, and also unconditional, going out to all people regardless of whether they are friend or foe. 

For a world that has grown accustomed to sin, holiness does often seem outdated...old-fashioned. But, as Pope Benedict XVI has taught: "Holiness never goes out of fashion; on the contrary, with the passage of time it shines out ever more brightly, expressing man's perennial effort to reach God."  Make no mistake, holiness will cost something. Those who aspire to make holiness their priority in life must count it no strange thing to be mocked, ridiculed, slandered, persecuted, and even hated. And in a world where faith and religion is held up to scorn, holiness has now become the new scandal! A Christian who faithfully lives up the high calling of perfection must submit to the fate of being called fool, idealist, and a fanatic; to have his words perverted and his actions misrepresented. But this is his edge – this is what makes the Christian salt of the earth and light of world. This is also what makes his life witness paradoxically attractive to every soul thirsting for greater spiritual depth in a world that can only offer shallow lies. In all this we remember the world does not set the standards for us. In matters of spirituality, mediocrity is never an option. Only the highest standards of excellence is demanded. We follow only one standard – “to be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” As for holiness, we can never have enough of it.

Realignment of Our Orientation

Solemnity of the Epiphany 

"Catholic mass is soooo boring! Why can't we include some rock music within the Liturgy?" I guess it has been a long time since someone walked up to me and said that the mass was lively. The reverse seems more plausible. “Aaaargh, mass was boring … as usual.” This is because the important criteria for the assessment of a ‘good’ and ‘lively’ mass is whether it was entertaining, creative, or exciting. In other words, the mass must meet my expectations in order to qualify for a passing mark. Ironically, many have forgotten the true story of Christmas. We have forgotten that the only criterion is the one displayed by the shepherds who made their way to the side of the crib, or the group of wise men who traversed distant lands braving all forms of difficult terrain and weather conditions in order that they may present their gifts before the child born in Bethlehem. That criterion is simply this: we are here to worship God.

Over a period of time I have overheard people discussing the setbacks of a Catholic mass and the futility of coming to Church. A teenager, talking to a group of her peers said that: “Mass is soooo boring. The music doesn’t rock at all! I don't know how a priest can say the same things every Sunday.” A man declared: “I am Catholic, but I don't see the need to go to church. After all, I know a lot of bad people who go to church and I know a lot of good people who don't go to church.” A lady stated that: “I'm a Catholic, but I don't go to church every Sunday. The homilies are so bad, I can't stand them. When I do go, I sometimes take a novel with me to read during the homily.”

Our initial reaction to any of these statements may often be to offer sympathy and our own agreement. Yes, mass is boring and seems even pointless when we don’t seem to get anything out of it. The argument might be raised that if people have fun, they will like going to Mass. If they don’t have fun, they won’t go. So we make a list of suggestions on how to remedy the situation – simply, make it lighter, shorter, less painful and uncomfortable, more fun, more exciting, more creative, and definitely more entertaining. We fail to recognise that these statements are actually quite revealing. They suggest that many people do not attend mass because they have come to worship God. In fact, many people attend mass because they are looking to be entertained.

Today’s Solemnity of the Epiphany offers us a realignment of our orientation. The magi, as did the shepherds on Christmas Day, offer us the supreme goal of our lives – it is to encounter Christ our Lord and offer him our worship and adoration. Unlike other astrologers who were busy studying constellations and stars that could guarantee good fortune and ward off bad luck, unlike King Herod who was so absorbed in his own self-importance, and unlike the Jewish priests and ruling elite who were concerned with self-preservation, the magi were able to transcend their own selfish goals and ambitions to discover their salvation in the Christ-child. In this sense, the Mass is a kind of epiphany, a manifestation of Christ in person, body and blood, soul and divinity, calling us to transcend our self-absorption. Epiphany is an invitation to restore the sense of the sacred, to return Christ to his rightful place as the real star of the celebration, and to give priority to worship in our encounter with Him.

Pope Emeritus Benedict once taught that “the liturgy is not a kind of ‘self-manifestation’ of a community,” in other words, it is not an Epiphany of man. Rather, it should always be an Epiphany of God – Christ who manifests himself not only as man but under the form of bread and wine. Pope Benedict noted that when priests or parishioners reflect on how to make the liturgy “attractive, interesting and beautiful,” they can “risk forgetting the essential: That is the liturgy is celebrated for God and not for ourselves.”

 If God is absent from our celebration, then we are lost – without a star, we become the stars. The Mass, therefore, is a bridge between heaven and earth, a serious business which can never be taken lightly. The Mass was never meant to be a form of entertainment, any more than the sacrifice on Calvary was meant to be. The whole point of Holy Mass is not to create a human experience, but rather to encounter mystery. Our experiences at Mass must be conditioned by and predicated on these goals: we are here to discover Christ and worship Him.  

Sometimes, the young are cited as the justification for introducing innovation and ‘fun’ into the liturgy, in the form of livelier music, relaxing the rubrics and rules regarding decorum and dressing, and turning the priest into an entertainer. This is the argument many self-described pastoral types make: and see how it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If, week after week, our young people are given the message that the Mass is supposed to be “fun”, entertaining, rocking, etc., then they will expect it always to be that way, and they will learn to judge it according to these malformed standards. Giving the kids a ‘good time’, is a tragic short-changing. The idea that a Mass must be entertaining and must hold the attention of children by means of gimmicks is a mistake. We will create a kind of spiritual blindness and deafness in the young. They will come to mistake their subjective experience for the voice of God. They will come to mass hoping to attend a ‘circus’ and certainly not dispose themselves to worship God.

In the three gifts offered by the wise men to Christ, we are invited to restore Christ’s rightful place in our liturgy.  The gift of gold symbolises our acknowledgment that he is king. The gold that you see on the altar is not a symbol of human opulence but the glory due to the King of Kings, worthy of our humble submission. The gift of frankincense symbolises our worship and adoration due to one who is not just a mega rock star or super-hero – he is God worthy of our praises. Finally, the gift of myrrh reminds us of the solemnity of our celebration which is a re-enactment of his sacrifice on the Cross. The cross is hardly entertaining because the cross demands that we deny ourselves of the need for amusement and stardom. Christ must suffer and die in order for the world to be saved. This is his destiny. We as his followers must also be prepared to follow his example and accept his fate. The way of the cross leads to heaven.

Today, as we pay homage to the King of Kings, the Lord our God, and the Saviour who died on the cross for us, let us never forget that he is always the Star and focus of our celebration. He may have to suffer this injustice whenever we can’t tell the difference between what we sing in a bar, in our bathrooms, or what we hear at a concert with what we do in mass. A renewed sense of the sacred in Church would allay such fears and provide a sensible distinction between what we are doing in the Church and what we are doing in the pub downstairs.